“Keep That Left Up…”

June 17, 2008

A few months ago Missy and I started taking boxing down at the local gym. At first we were clueless and weren’t quite sure how we were going to hang…but we stayed with it. Slowly, we learned the routine and before we knew it we were helping others.

Then we kinda fell off the wagon…Sound familiar?

Life got in the way, we got busy, excuse after excuse.

Yesterday, the excuses stopped. We got back on!

And as you can imagine we had lost a bit of our form.

“Keep that left up!” I would hear as I got popped upside the head. It was a LONG workout yesterday.

Now, the reason I share this story with you this fine morning is that it has a few life and business lessons that we can all learn from.

1. When we first started it was a bit awkward. If you start something new, it might appear to your senses as weird or even wrong at first. But you have to train yourself and fight through it until you get comfortable.

One of the things I force myself to do is step out of the comfort zone! And I kinda feel weird or uncertain. But after awhile I’ll get the hang out it and have a new skill and you will too! Public speaking is a great example of this.

2. We fell off the wagon. This is very easy to do, especially with all the distraction nowadays.

They say it takes about 30 days of doing the same activity before you make it a routine. We definitely didn’t make it 30 days in a row when we first started. The bigger lesson is that even though we fell off the horse, we got back on.

If there is something that you want to do and you’ve stopped for some reason (working out, organizing your files, etc.), just do it! There’s no time like the present to get started again.

3. “Keep that left up…” - I noticed that when I got tired, my left would drop, protecting my face, and I’d get popped. It made me think that when I get tired at work sometimes I get lazy or make excuses.

For me that might be one less email or perhaps getting one out late. And sometimes when I drop my left, I just don’t get done what I need to at the end of the day.

Training, being consistent and developing a routine will get you back in shape. But before you can do all of this, I’ve got one question for you…